Monotony

Monotony is the defining condition of Tara’s existence and the novel makes it equally central to the reader’s experience. It operates simultaneously as theme and as formal principle. The repetition of days is not treated as a puzzle to be solved or a framework for imaginative exploration of the possibilities offered by the time loop, but as an environment that gradually erodes agency and expectation. The novel asks what it is like to live inside sameness, and then structures itself so that the reader must inhabit that sameness alongside Tara.

Unlike many time loop narratives, Tara does not approach her situation as an opportunity for experimentation or play. She does not test the boundaries of the loop in creative or transgressive ways, nor does she attempt to maximise pleasure, knowledge, or control, knowing that she will face no consequences for her experiments when time...